Great Britain and the American Civil War Part 31

[Footnote 666: The two princ.i.p.al British works are: Arnold, _The History of the Cotton Famine_, London, 1864; and Watts, _The Facts of the Cotton Famine_, Manchester, 1866. A remarkable statistical a.n.a.lysis of the world cotton trade was printed in London in 1863, by a Southerner seeking to use his study as an argument for British mediation. George McHenry, _The Cotton Trade_.]

[Footnote 667: Scherer, _Cotton as a World Power_, pp. 263-4.]

[Footnote 668: Lack of authentic statistics on indirect interests make this a guess by the _Times_. Other estimates run from one-seventh to one-fourth.]

[Footnote 669: Schmidt, "Wheat and Cotton During the Civil War," p. 408 (in _Iowa Journal of History and Politics_, Vol. 16), 78.8 per cent.

(Hereafter cited as Schmidt, _Wheat and Cotton_.) Scherer, _Cotton as a World Power_, p. 264, states 84 per cent, for 1860. Arnold, _Cotton Famine_, pp. 36-39, estimates 83 per cent.]

[Footnote 670: Great Britain ordinarily ran more than twice as many spindles as all the other European nations combined. Schmidt, _Wheat and Cotton_, p. 407, _note_.]

[Footnote 671: This Return for April is noteworthy as the first differentiating commerce with the North and the South.]

[Footnote 672: These facts are drawn from Board of Trade Reports, and from the files of the _Economist_, London, and _Hunt's Merchants Magazine_, New York. I am also indebted to a ma.n.u.script thesis by T.P.

Martin, "The Effects of the Civil War Blockade on the Cotton Trade of the United Kingdom," Stanford University. Mr. Martin in 1921 presented at Harvard University a thesis for the Ph.D degree, ent.i.tled "The Influence of Trade (in Cotton and Wheat) on Anglo-American Relations, 1829-1846," but has not yet carried his more matured study to the Civil War period.]

[Footnote 673: Adams, _Trans-Atlantic Historical Solidarity_, p. 89.]

[Footnote 674: F.O., Am., Vol. 843. No. 10. Bunch to Russell, Jan. 8, 1862. Bunch also reported that inland fields were being transformed to corn production and that even the cotton on hand was deteriorating because of the lack of bagging, shut off by the blockade.]

[Footnote 675: Arnold, _Cotton Famine_, p. 81.]

[Footnote 676: Richardson, II, 198. Mason to Hunter, March 11, 1862.]

[Footnote 677: Parliamentary Returns, 1861 and 1862. _Monthly Accounts of Trade and Navigation_ (in _Parliamentary Papers_, 1862, _Commons_.

Vol. LV, and 1863, _Commons_, Vol. LXV).]

[Footnote 678: Arnold, _Cotton Famine_, pp. 174 and 215.]

[Footnote 679: In 1861 there were 26 Members from Lancas.h.i.+re in the Commons, representing 14 boroughs and 2 counties. The suffrage was such that only 1 in every 27 of the population had the vote. For all England the proportion was 1 in 23 (Rhodes, IV, 359). _Parliamentary Papers_, 1867-8, _Lords_, Vol. x.x.xII, "Report on Boundaries of Boroughs and Counties of England."]

[Footnote 680: The figures are drawn from (1) Farnall's "Reports on Distress in the Manufacturing Districts," 1862. _Parliamentary Papers, Commons_, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, 1863. _Ibid._, Vol. LII, 1864; and (2) from "Summary of the Number of Paupers in the Distressed Districts," from November, 1861, to December, 1863. _Commons_, Vol. LII. Farnall's reports are less exact than the _Summary_ since at times Liverpool is included, at times not, as also six small poor-law unions which do not appear in his reports until 1864. The _Summary_ consistently includes Liverpool, and fluctuates violently for that city whenever weather conditions interfered with the ordinary business of the port. It is a striking ill.u.s.tration of the narrow margin of living wages among the dockers of Liverpool that an annotation at the foot of a column of statistics should explain an increase in one week of 21,000 persons thrown on poor relief to the "prevalence of a strong east wind" which prevented vessels from getting up to the docks.]

[Footnote 681: Trevelyan, _Bright_, p. 309. To Sumner, Dec. 6, 1862.]

[Footnote 682: The historians who see only economic causes have misinterpreted the effects on policy of the "cotton famine." Recently, also, there has been advanced an argument that "wheat defeated cotton"--an idea put forward indeed in England itself during the war by pro-Northern friends who pointed to the great flow of wheat from the North as essential in a short-crop situation in Great Britain. Mr.

Schmidt in "The Influence of Wheat and Cotton on Anglo-American Relations during the Civil War," a paper read before the American Historical a.s.sociation, Dec. 1917, and since published in the _Iowa Journal of History and Politics_, July, 1918, presents with much care all the important statistics for both commodities, but his conclusions seem to me wholly erroneous. He states that "Great Britain's dependence on Northern wheat ... operated as a contributing influence in keeping the British government officially neutral ..." (p. 423), a cautious statement soon transformed to the positive one that "this fact did not escape the attention of the English government," since leading journals referred to it (p. 431). Progressively, it is a.s.serted: "But it was Northern wheat that may well be regarded as the decisive factor, counterbalancing the influence of cotton, in keeping the British government from recognizing the Confederacy" (p. 437). "That the wheat situation must have exerted a profound influence on the government ..."

(p. 438). And finally: "In this contest wheat won, demonstrating its importance as a world power of greater significance than cotton" (p.

439). This interesting thesis has been accepted by William Trimble in "Historical Aspects of the Surplus Food Production of the United States, 1862-1902" (_Am. Hist. a.s.soc. Reports_, 1918, Vol. I, p. 224). I think Mr. Schmidt's errors are: (1) a mistake as to the time when recognition of the South was in governmental consideration. He places it in midsummer, 1863, when in fact the danger had pa.s.sed by January of that year. (2) A mistake in placing cotton and wheat supply on a parity, since the former could not be obtained in quant.i.ty from _any_ source before 1864, while wheat, though coming from the United States, could have been obtained from interior Russia, as well as from the maritime provinces, in increased supply if Britain had been willing to pay the added price of inland transport. There was a real "famine" of cotton; there would have been none of wheat, merely a higher cost. (This fact, a vital one in determining influence, was brought out by George McHenry in the columns of _The Index_, Sept. 18, 1862.) (3) The fact, in spite of all Mr. Schmidt's suppositions, that while cotton was frequently a subject of governmental concern in _memoranda_ and in private notes between members of the Cabinet, I have failed to find one single case of the mention of wheat. This last seems conclusive in negation of Mr.

Schmidt's thesis.]

[Footnote 683: Speech at Rochdale, Sept. 1, 1861. Cited in _Hunt's Merchants Magazine_, Vol. 45, pp. 326-7.]

[Footnote 684: _Ibid._, p. 442.]

[Footnote 685: e.g., The _Times_, Sept. 19, 1861.]

[Footnote 686: To Sumner, Nov. 20, 1861. Ma.s.s Hist. Soc. _Proceedings_, XLVI, p. 97.]

[Footnote 687: _Ibid._, Jan. 11, 1862. Vol. XLV, p. 157.]

[Footnote 688: F.O., Am., Vol. 843. No. 85. Bunch to Russell, June 25, 1862. He reported a general burning of cotton estimating the amount so destroyed as nearly one million bales.]

[Footnote 689: Rhodes, III, p. 503, leaves the impression that England was at first unanimous in attributing the cotton disaster to the War.

Also, IV, p. 77. I think this an error. It was the general public belief but not that of the well informed. Rhodes, Vol. IV, p. 364, says that it was not until January, 1863, that it was "begun to be understood" that famine was not wholly caused by the War, but partly by glut.]

[Footnote 690: Hansard, 3d. Ser., CLXVI, pp. 1490-1520. Debate on "The Distress in the Manufacturing Districts." The princ.i.p.al speakers were Egerton, Potter, Villiers and Bright. Another debate on "The Cotton Supply" took place June 19, 1862, with no criticism of America. _Ibid._, CLXVII, pp. 754-93.]

[Footnote 691: See _ante_, p. 12.]

[Footnote 692: Gladstone Papers.]

[Footnote 693: F.O., Am., Vol. 843. No. 73. Bunch to Russell, May 12, 1862. A description of these orders as inclusive of "foreign owned"

cotton of which Bunch a.s.serted a great stock had been purchased and stored, waiting export, by British citizens. Molyneaux at Savannah made a similar report. _Ibid._, Vol. 849. No. 16. To Russell, May 10, 1862.]

[Footnote 694: Bancroft, _Seward_, II, pp. 214-18.]

[Footnote 695: Arnold, _Cotton Famine_, p. 228, quotes a song in the "improvised schoolrooms" of Ashton where operatives were being given a leisure-time education. One verse was:

"Our mules and looms have now ceased work, the Yankees are the cause. But we will let them fight it out and stand by English laws; No recognizing shall take place, until the war is o'er; Our wants are now attended to, we cannot ask for more."

[Footnote 696: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXVII, p. 1213.]

[Footnote 697: _Parliamentary Papers_, 1862, _Lords_, Vol. XXV. "Further Correspondence relating to the Civil War in the United States." No. 1.

Reed. June 21, 1862.]

[Footnote 698: Mason Papers.]

[Footnote 699: Thouvenel, _Le Secret de l'Empereur_, II, 352. The exact length of Thouvenel's stay in London is uncertain, but he had arrived by July 10 and was back in Paris by July 21. The text of the telegram is in a letter to Flahault of July 26, in which Thouvenel shows himself very averse to any move which may lead to war with America, "an adventure more serious than that of Mexico" (_Ibid._, p. 353).]

[Footnote 700: _Ibid._, p. 349. July 24, 1862. See also resume in Walpole, _History of Twenty-five Years_, II, 55.]

[Footnote 701: Farnall's First Report. _Parliamentary Papers_, 1862, _Commons_, Vol. XLIX.]

[Footnote 702: Lyons Papers. Lyons to Stuart, July 5, 1862.

"Public opinion will not allow the Government to do more for the North than maintain a strict neutrality, and it may not be easy to do that if there comes any strong provocation from the U.S. ..."

"However, the real question of the day is cotton...."

"The problem is of how to get over _this next_ winter. The prospects of the manufacturing districts are very gloomy."

"...If you can manage in any way to get a supply of cotton for England before the winter, you will have done a greater service than has been effected by Diplomacy for a century; but n.o.body expects it."

[Footnote 703: _A Cycle of Adams' Letters_, I, 166. To his son, July 18, 1862. He noted that the news had come by the _Glasgow_ which had sailed for England on July 5, whereas the papers contained also a telegram from McClellan's head-quarters, dated July 7, but "the people here are fully ready to credit anything that is not favourable." Newspaper headings were "Capitulation of McClellan's Army. Flight of McClellan on a steamer." _Ibid._, 167. Henry Adams to C.F. Adams, Jr., July 19.]

[Footnote 704: Gregory introduced a ridiculous extract from the _Dubuque Sun_, an Iowa paper, humorously advocating a repudiation of all debts to England, and solemnly held this up as evidence of the lack of financial morality in America. If he knew of this the editor of the small-town American paper must have been tickled at the reverberations of his humour.]